Do Unto Others
UPDATE: Greetings to the people visiting from Chief Wiggles. To read more about my views on things after 15 or so years in Korea, please visit my main page and look around. Please also visit the other Korea-related sights listed in the right-hand column.
ALSO: Thanks to Plunge at Chief Wiggles for providing an excellent link on the Comfort Women issue.
“It’s funny because I don’t know him.” - H. Simpson
I do not know what gets into people sometimes. I cannot for the life of me figure out why some people are just completely unable to check themselves before doing something stupid and revolting. I often find myself observing a certain behavior and thinking, “At what point did this seem to be a good idea” Even with some of the most ridiculous and offensive ideas, it is often possible to see how it may have started out with good intentions as a decent and perhaps even worthwhile endeavor, but somewhere along the line things went terribly bad. Most of us seem to have a filter buried deep within our minds that prevents us from acting on some of the things that find their way into our thoughts, but some apparently do not.
Often times, in smaller matters, ignorance can be an excuse. We do something or say something in innocence and ignorance. Someone else points out to us why that is wrong or offensive. We then reply, “Wow. I had no idea”. When then apologize and undue what we have done as best we can.
However, other times, ignorance is not an option. There are some images, themes, historical events, etc. about which it is virtually impossible to be ignorant of if you have reached a certain age. Where ignorance is not an option, the use of these things in marketing is a horrible effrontery that can only be ascribed to greed, selfishness, hate, meanness, stupidity, and/or racism.
While it is unfortunate that far too many people in the world are ignorant of the rape of Nanking, the comfort girl issue, the nightmare of Stalinist Russian (there is a shocking number of people who have no idea that Stalin was a bad guy), the persecution and slaughter of American Indians, and other such tragedies, there is virtually no one that can claim ignorance of Hitler and his Nazis. The very name “Hitler” or the very word “Nazi” brings images of death, destruction, murder, and torture. These are two words that are the embodiment of Evil. The ghastly holocaust that was perpetrated against the Jews, other groups, and the psyche of the world under the power of those two words, is quite nearly incomprehensible. They are words that should not be used lightly, and if you are one of those people, usually liberals, who brand anyone that is politically different or more conservative than you a Nazi or if you compare anyone that you disagree with to Hitler, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Given that virtually everyone alive in any sort of civilized society knows who Hitler and the Nazi were and what they did, why then is it acceptable to use them as themes and marketing tools? It is not, but some people do not seem to understand that. They seem to be missing the mental filter that tells you if something has crossed a line or is not acceptable, or perhaps the quest for money dampens the effectiveness of their filter.
This leads me to question why it is that the whole country of Korea is in a uproar because some former Miss Korea fading actress tries to commercialize the sexual abuse of thousands of women, but the same people are quite as dead church mice and even defensive when it comes to the commercialization of icons representing the torture, starvation, and murder of millions upon millions of people.
What I am talking about is all the flap surrounding Lee Seung-yeon’s incredibly stupid and utterly shameful decision to do seductively posed nude shots of simulated rape and abuse at the hands of Japanese soldiers in order to make money. She claims this was done to honor and commemorate the suffering of the comfort women who were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese army during WWII. Koreans went ballistic over this, and rightfully so. It was a horrible publicity stunt designed to go set her apart from the other actresses, singers, and celebrity women that are all rushing to remove their clothes for a few bucks. She wanted to be a bit edgier, to stand out, to get more attention than the others. It blew up in her face and has essentially cost her a career. She is done.
At that same time, every year or two, someone with absolutely no sense of decency will make a music video, produce a commercial, or open a bar with some sort of Nazi or Hitler theme. There was a clothing commercial that featured Vanessa Mae playing violin on top of a bomber superimposed over Nazi soldiers goose-stepping in formation. There was a snack commercial showing how Hitler liked the chocolate cakes so much he spoke Korean. There was a gum commercial that showed a maniacally screaming Hitler break into a computer-generated smile to show that the gum was so good it even made Hitler smile. There has been the Hitler bar in Seoul, the Third Reich bar in Seoul, the Nazi cafe in Masan, the Hitler hoff in Pusan, and others. But these moneymaking ideas have been perfectly acceptable to the Koreans. The only reasons these were stopped was because of the outcry from foreigners.
Was there any head-shaving going on? Was there any bowing in apology to Jewish organizations? No. Just a lot of defensive comments and attempts to explain that they were just kidding, they were just having fun, they were just this and that.
Is it ignorance? No. It is the simple, yet utterly stupid view that because it is not us, it is acceptable or is not such a big problem. Many Koreans will say that the Hitler stuff happens because they do not feel it in their bones or psyche. That is a ridiculous copout. As far as I know, I do not have a drop of Jewish or German blood in me and I do not personally know anyone who was killed in WWII or concentration camps, but the images and ideas make me sick.
I have talked to a few of the people behind the Hitler Hoff, the Nazi cafe and other such establishments. They all initially insisted that they had done nothing wrong as it was only a marketing ploy. However, they unanimously bristled at my comment that I would go back to Pusan an open a restaurant with Rising Sun flags on the walls and call in the Comfort Girl Cafe
So why does it happen then? Why is it not acceptable market things using Korean tragedy and horror, but the horror and tragedy of other countries is fair game for Koreans to use to their economic advantage? Arrogance. Utter disregard for others who are “different” than you and not part of your “Homogenous” society. These things foster the Homer Simpson view that ”It’s funny because I don’t know him.”
Yes, Lee Seung-yeon should be ashamed of herself. She should grovel at the feet of the real comfort women and beg their forgiveness. Likewise, the Koreans who build marketing strategies around Hitler and the Nazis, Osama Bin Laden (anyone remember Osama Bin Ramyeon a few years ago?), or other Evil should be humiliated and publicly shamed for their disgraceful behavior. Furthermore, Koreans should be ashamed of this double standard that is prevalent in so many layers of this society. Far too much of this society is based upon the idea that it is ok if we do it to you, but don’t you dare even think about doing it to us.
It is that attitude that gives us the ridiculous statements like those in this article from Time Asia a few years ago.
A small photo of Adolf Hitler adorns the entrance to the Fifth Reich, an upscale watering hole in Seoul’s Shinchon university district. A larger picture of the Fuhrer hangs across from the bar, where waiters and waitresses with swastika arm badges mix drinks that have names like “Adolf Hitler”and “Dead.” Young people chat at booths surrounded by statues of golden eagles, Romanesque columns and large glass display cases of SS insignia. Nazi pins and Iron Crosses are on sale beside the cash register. It almost looks like a quiet shrine to the man who sent 6 million Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust.
That is a typical description of places like this.
But this isn’t a neo-Nazi hangout. Some, . . . like regular patron Chung Jae Kyung, 22, are aware of the evil the Nazis did but not especially moved by it. “I don’t hate them, I don’t like them,” says Chung, a neatly dressed English-lit student with an easy smile. “But at least they dressed well.”
The systematically tried to wipe out an entire ethnic group along with other religions and groups. They murdered more than 6,000,000 people, but they dress nice. So did the Japanese army. Nice browns. Cool-looking hats.
An unthinking fascination with the icons and imagery of the Third Reich is a small but troubling trend in South Korea, a country that suffered enormously under the harsh colonial rule of Germany’s ally, Japan.
I disagree that it is unthinking. It is unfortunately, very calculated to try to get money.
For many of the young people at the Fifth Reich, it’s simply a fashion statement, with part of the appeal being the taboo nature of the symbols.
Again, the Rising Sun flag of WWII Japan is a taboo symbol here. Where is the ”chic”, the fascination, and appeal with that? Nowhere.
Following complaints from the German and Israeli embassies, the government pressured the bar, which was originally called the Third Reich, to shut down, . . . the big Nazi flags came down and Hitler’s Third Reich morphed into the Fifth Reich. But the Nazi theme still dominates, and the menus and matchbooks carry the old name beneath an image of a menacing black eagle. Kim still hangs the Hitler portrait because, he says, “I don’t have anything to put in its place.” Anyway, he adds: “It’s just for decoration.” (He hung three new Hitler photos in recent weeks.)
Emperor Hirohito’s picture is “Just decoration”. Heihachiro Togo’s picture is “Just decoration.” Aren’t they?
And what was Crown Confectionery thinking when it kicked off an ad campaign for chocolate covered cakes? Inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s Hitler in the 1940 movie The Great Dictator, the ad featured one of Korea’s top comics as the Fuhrer. After taking a bite, Hitler suddenly switches from German-sounding gibberish to fluent Korean and his mood mellows. The campaign was pulled after the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles protested to Korean diplomats in the U.S. Stylist Koh Jung Won, who designed Hitler’s wardrobe (she used an East German army uniform and sewed on Nazi patches bought in Seoul) says the ads weren’t meant to offend. “It was a fun thing,” she says. “We were trying to portray Hitler in a funny way.”
Will someone please show me the humor in these photos? I seem to be missing the joke, the fashion statement, the decoration, or whatever other justification people try to make.
Someone should actually open the comfort girl cafe in the US or some other place and use the excuse, we are just trying to portray the forcible sexual abuse of Koreans by the Japanese army in a funny way and see how far that goes.
Attempting to defend the indefensible is stupid and just makes it worse. At lease Lee Seung-yeon had the decency to quit justifying and explaining herself and simply apologize. Now, if Korean society in general will learn what is and is not appropriate as far as the representation of foreign events and notorious individuals are concerned, it would go a long way toward bettering its image abroad. There is an unfortunate lack of treating others as you would like to be treated here in Korea.